Pastor’s Corner — September 6th, 2026
Missionary Cooperative Appeal This Weekend
Every year we host a missionary to preach an appeal, which also allows me to get away. (I’m presenting at the Good News Conference in Nashville, TN this weekend). Hosting and giving to such appeals is rooted in our deeply Catholic conviction that the Church throughout the world is One Body of Christ. We are all on the same team and on the same mission of witnessing to the love of Jesus in word and in deed. Not only do we care about the Church’s efforts locally, but we care about the Church’s efforts across the world.
We are not having a second collection for this appeal, but invite people either to give in an envelope designated for this purpose (Checks written out to St Patrick Catholic Parish with “Mission Appeal” in Memo) or give online by clicking here. It’s important that if you’re giving online to use the drop-down menu to select the fund “Missionary Cooperative Appeal.”
Here is a note from Fr Raj:
The human tragedy, pain, poverty and deprivation of all sorts, caused by religious discrimination that is rampant in India cannot be narrated here in words. Therefore, the mission Diocese of Kumbakonam humbly seeks your prayerful and financial help.
This Diocese, established in 1899 in the State of Tamil Nadu, India, has an area of 7824 sq.km., a Catholic population of 2,13,000 (6% of the total population), 95 parishes and 610 missions, 198 diocesan and 74 religious priests, 620 nuns, 12 trained catechists and 590 untrained lay catechists, two Social Service Centres, 136 schools and 12 orphanages.
Most pressing missionary needs of this mission-diocese are:
1) 4 more new parishes, each with a new church and rectory. Large parishes need to be divided into smaller parishes with a resident priest for better pastoral ministry. But the people cannot execute this project due to their poverty.
2) Schools are our main means of ushering in progress at all levels. Education is the main method of evangelization and boosting the future prospects of the youth. In this context, the 136 Catholic schools and 12 orphanages in the missions need better facilities, building, infrastructure, educational and technical tools, children’s Bibles, a projector, catechetical materials in the form of videos, pictures, textbooks and workbooks to improve the quality of religious and faith formation of Catholic and non-Catholic students in mission-schools.
3) Training 480 nuns and 4955 Catholic teachers in charge of catechetical, educational, medical and social ministries throughout this rural diocese, to educate the children and adults in the Catholic faith and to help the people, particularly the poor and the marginalized for their integral development, through annual seminars on Scripture and Catechetics and Motivation Courses and annual Retreats.
4) Projecting the healing touch and loving care of Jesus, the Divine Healer through our diocesan hospitals for lepers, home and school for hearing impaired children, HIV patients & their children and the many rural medical clinics, staffed by nuns.
5) Education of more seminarians since the diocese abounds in vocation to priesthood and religious life so that some could be sent as missionaries to missions abroad where there is a shortage of priests. Note: Every year an average of 120 young men and women go from this diocese to other Missions and Religious Orders in India and abroad as missionaries. Now 28 priests of this diocese are missionaries abroad.
6) To educate 2500 very poor or orphan children of single mothers and widows and of addictive and abusive fathers by providing them with free board & lodge, in order to eradicate child labor. Such children are forced to tend cattle, work in hazardous conditions in factories, hotels or farms in order to eke out a living for the family.
7) To build low-cost homes with $6,000 for these poor families with elderly parents who do not have a proper home.
All the above mission projects are 80% dependent on MCP funds. Due to acute poverty of 65% of the Catholics, the diocese depends mostly on funds from our annual Mission Appeal for the pastoral, educational, medical, and socio-economic emancipation of the marginalized and poor converts.
Your Christ-like intervention and sacrifice of:
1) $30 will feed a poor child or an orphan for a month. ($300 annually).
2) $100 will enable a single mother or widow to feed her family of 3 for two weeks.
3) $150 for monthly pay for a catechist.
4) $200 for a tailoring machine for a poor uneducated woman to earn a living.
5) $300 will provide 4 goats to maintain a family of four.
6) $400 will pay for medical care for a leper
7) $500 will educate a physically challenged child (annually).
8) $700 for family maintenance of a leprosy patient for a year.
9) $800 to fix the roof of a poor man’s hut.
10) $900 for a cow to feed a family of 6 with elderly parents and grandparents.
11) $1,000 for treatment and rehabilitation of a leper.
12) $2,000 to sponsor a seminarian for a year.
13) $6,000 for a low-cost home for a very poor family.
14) $30,000 will build a chapel in a poor mission that does not have one yet.
Please welcome Fr. Selva Raj from the Diocese of Kumbakonam, India, and prayerfully consider giving a generous gift to his appeal.
Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Mathias